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I find myself doing this quite a lot in Blender 2.8: Add temporary centered edge loop (Ctrl+R click, Esc), then use Offset Edge Slide (Ctrl+Shift+R - I think this is the default?) to generate 2 mirrored edge loops that are equal distance from the corners of the shape, then delete the temporary center edge (Ctrl+X).

Hopefully this isn't too confusing - the point is to quickly create two edge loops that are identically spaced from the edges. This seems like an extremely useful task. My question is - Does Blender have some mechanism to do this in one step? The ability to create 2 edge loops and edge-slide them away from each other simultaneously?

I'm okay with using add-ons if anyone is aware of a tool that does this.

EDIT

After posting, I starting playing around with the loopcut_slide shortcut and may have came up with exactly what I wanted. I haven't fully tested this, so it may completely fail at something later. But so far, it seems pretty good. It creates two edges (in one click/drag), and moves them toward/away from each other simultaneously.

shortcut

cutting

If you guys have trouble seeing the shortcut, here are the most important settings:

  • Shortcut Command: mesh.loopcut_slide
  • Number of cuts: 2
  • Factor: -0.5 (this starts them in the center - use 0.0 to start at default spacing)
  • Single Side: Enabled (this was the magic checkbox that made it work)
  • Clamp: Disabled (otherwise, they cannot move to the center)

The only issue so far is that it is easy to accidentally slide the wrong way with clamp turned off. So it may be better to leave that on.

For anyone not familiar with creating custom shortcuts, you just go into User Preferences -> Keymap -> 3D view -> Mesh (Global) -> scroll to bottom and press add new, expand the new entry and type in mesh.loopcut_slide into the text box. Then set up the options as above.

EDIT 2

After playing around with this some more, it appears this setup does not work as well as I hoped. When the enclosing edges have strange angles, the cut-slide does not perform the way you would expect. So my vote goes to Lemon's suggestion of using Bevel after adding a single loop cut. It works perfectly in all cases except when your model has UVs (edit/correction: bevel does work well with UVs). I will update this if I manage to stabilize this crazy shortcut.

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    $\begingroup$ Using bevel (ctrl+B) on the first created edge loop? With 'percent' option $\endgroup$
    – lemon
    Aug 27, 2019 at 13:36
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    $\begingroup$ And for the second question, I use this screentogif.com but there are others. $\endgroup$
    – lemon
    Aug 27, 2019 at 13:39
  • $\begingroup$ You can post your edit as an answer. Haven't tested it, but it looks great. $\endgroup$
    – Robert Gützkow ♦
    Aug 27, 2019 at 13:57
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    $\begingroup$ Interesting, the Single Slide option doesn't appear in the Adjust Last Operation Panel. $\endgroup$
    – Robert Gützkow ♦
    Aug 27, 2019 at 14:05
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    $\begingroup$ I'll check with the developers if it's intentionally left out or if it was simply forgotten during 2.8 development. $\endgroup$
    – Robert Gützkow ♦
    Aug 27, 2019 at 14:16

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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CtrlR for the first loop.

CtrlB to bevel it using the percent option.

enter image description here

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    $\begingroup$ ah, cool. You can press ctrl+b, 0.5, enter to make it quicker $\endgroup$
    – Steve
    Aug 27, 2019 at 13:51
  • $\begingroup$ This is probably the best built in method available $\endgroup$
    – Robert
    Aug 27, 2019 at 14:37
  • $\begingroup$ Maybe even why the Single Slide option isn't available in the UI? In the interests of keeping the interface lean? $\endgroup$
    – Robin Betts ♦
    Aug 27, 2019 at 15:50
  • $\begingroup$ @RobinBetts, only the devs know it. $\endgroup$
    – lemon
    Aug 27, 2019 at 15:52
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    $\begingroup$ Single-side is used to implement "Offset Edge Slide" (Ctrl-Shift-R), tested exposing this and it's not very useful to expose AFAICS. $\endgroup$
    – ideasman42
    Jan 14, 2020 at 7:31
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You can scroll the mouse wheel to increase the number of edge cuts. enter image description here

Then dissolve the centre loop enter image description here

Then you'll end up with enter image description here

If you then want move them I guess you'd scale them on the x-axis. Not sure there's an easy way to do it if it's not along one of the local or global axes, though.

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  • $\begingroup$ This is not good approach, because it neither solves the problem (slide is required not scale otherwise it just works with faces aligned with the axis) nor does it need less steps than loop cut with offset $\endgroup$
    – Robert Gützkow ♦
    Aug 27, 2019 at 13:48
  • $\begingroup$ I'm not sure exactly what he's asking for then. Unless you're saying that's correct except for the off-axis issue. $\endgroup$
    – Steve
    Aug 27, 2019 at 13:48
  • $\begingroup$ Yes and using a middle loop cut and then loop cut with offset is what Robert already did and this approach requires more steps. Didn't mean to sound harsh, it's just that the point of the question was to reduce the steps required. $\endgroup$
    – Robert Gützkow ♦
    Aug 27, 2019 at 13:53
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This is supported by "Offset Edge Slide"

  • Select the face loop you want to operate on.
  • Invert the selection (C-i).
  • Offset Edge Slide (C-S-r)
    • Enable Even Spacing (e)
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